


oceans between us

by ilovenutella99



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, another reunion fic, but soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 03:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14417151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovenutella99/pseuds/ilovenutella99
Summary: Bellamy Blake doesn't know what to think about soulmates. He doesn't know what to think because the one person he thought could be his soulmate is dead and has been for six years. But one day, when he's looking through the Ark's old files, everything changes.Inspired by this post: https://asroarke.tumblr.com/post/173129885638/i-really-want-to-read-a-soulmate-au-taking-place





	oceans between us

**Author's Note:**

> hello again i know i've already written a reunion fic but i saw a post about reunion fic with SOULMATES and i had to write it. this is probably riddled with errors and probably feels super fast paced but like i bet that's what it feels like on the ground. i wanted to post this before show day (can u believe we actually made it!!!) so here we are.   
> as always, come talk to me on tumblr! clrxkeblxke  
> also asroarke thanks for the inspiration!
> 
> here is the post: https://asroarke.tumblr.com/post/173129885638/i-really-want-to-read-a-soulmate-au-taking-place

Bellamy’s had his mark since he was sixteen. That’s when they all get the marks, if they have them. Soulmates. When he was sixteen, he thought they were silly. He didn’t think that there was a person alive who was perfectly made for him. He was too much of a mess, too concerned about his sister to even care about who it could be.

But, he still had it.  On the top of his left shoulder blade. He can never see it, but he knows it’s there. Octavia was the one who pointed it out when he first turned sixteen, and he let her theorize about who it could be. He never had the heart to tell her that he could never know who the person was.

And then he gets to the ground, and the ground is chaotic. It’s dangerous and insane and full of things he’d never imagine he’d see. Trees, grass, the _fucking sun_. The ground is a mess and more often than not results in death and destruction. For a few days, that’s who he is. He’s death and destruction wrapped up into a person.

Until suddenly, he’s not alone. He has an accomplice, someone else to shoulder the burden of leadership. But they fight. Oh, they argue and bicker until they’re red in the face. But he likes to rile her up, likes to see her get angry. It reminds him that he’s not the only one struggling with being a leader. That he’s not alone.

She’s good at leadership, though. She thrives when talking to the delinquents, thrives at finding ways to get them out of the sticky situations they get into. He motivates them, she pushes them forwards. It’s what they do.

They get separated more than once. Things always seem to go sour when they’re apart. Someone dies, or something blows up, or one of them makes a choice that haunts them. That’s what happens on the ground. They make the hard choices because they have to, because they’re the leaders.

Despite all of the separation, they get close. They care for each other immensely, more than he thought possible. He’s just a boy who’s made mistakes, but she sees past that. She sees past his faults and cares for him so deeply he doesn’t know what to do with himself. And she’s just a girl who’s lost so much but continues to risk everything for her people, for him.

Part of him begins to wonder if she has a soulmark. If it matches his. Because they understand each other so well, despite so little time of knowing each other. Isn’t that what the old tradition said? That soulmates would understand each other with just a glance in the same direction? That they wouldn’t have to wonder what the other was thinking? For a few days before the end of the world, he thinks about it. He almost asks her about it one day, standing on a riverbank. She cuts him off. He knows why, but he doesn’t press the topic. He’s curious. What he’s beginning to feel for his co-leader doesn’t overcome the bitter fear about the end of the world swirling in the pit of his stomach.

Until one day he doesn’t have to wonder anymore because she’s gone. She’s gone because she sacrificed herself so that her friends would be safe. So that he would be safe.

The thought is still hard to swallow five and a half years later.

* * *

 

They were supposed to go down at five years. He said no. Raven fought him on it. They went around and around for hours about it. She said that the green spot was there and just waiting for them. He said they didn’t even know if it was safe. No matter how much he wanted to get down to his sister, they don’t know if the bunker is open. No transmissions have gotten through to them, despite how often they keep the comms up and running. They’ve gotten static a couple times, but it’s never enough to convince them all to go down. He wants to wait until they get a clear signal from the ground.

He tries not to think about it. The mark on his shoulder blade. He doesn’t even know if it’s still there, honestly. He thinks it’s better to not know. He knows that when your soulmate dies the mark is supposed to fade. He can’t bring himself to look, because then that’s one more thing to tell him that Clarke is dead. Dead because he left her there. Unless she’s not his soulmate, and his soulmate is still out there somewhere.

Bellamy doesn’t know which of those options hurt more.

So he pushes it from his mind for five and half years because it doesn’t hurt as much to think about it. Until one day he can’t push it from his mind because someone notices it and points it out.

He freezes up as soon as the words are out of Echo’s mouth. “Sorry,” she says hastily as he pulls his shirt on. “I didn’t know it was there.” They were sparing. She got the best of him, again. He expects it at this point.

Bellamy shrugs, trying to fight the burning feeling in his stomach. “I didn’t either.” It’s still there. Still just as dark as it was the day he got it, his soulmark is still there. The anxiety pooling in his stomach only increases as he stands up, going to look out the window again. He pretends to be very occupied in staring at Eden.

Echo follows slowly and he feels her eyes trained on his back. “How long have you had it?”

Bellamy swallows, scrubbing his hand over his face. “Since I was sixteen. That’s when they appear. Surely the grounders had the stories too.”

She nods, turning to look out at the window again. “We did. I have just never seen one before. I knew that they exist, but I’ve never seen one. We believe that Becca planted them on certain people to pull them to their other half.” He doesn’t answer, just crosses his arms and continues staring. “I don’t have one.”

His stomach knots again. It’s not like he thought Echo was his. It’s just that they get each other, to an extent. He understands for the most part why she did what she did on the ground. She did it for her people He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to forgive her for telling him Octavia was dead, or playing a role in Gina’s death, but. They’ve bonded in a weird way on the Ark. She’s been so out of her element and he was so lost for the first couple years that it was bound to happen. They’ve been sleeping together for the past year, and he doesn’t know if there’s anything more to it. She’s strong and she’s fearless, but the sense of gentleness he knows he needs is missing.

When he doesn’t say anything, Echo continues, “that means they’re still out there.”

He can’t stop himself from scoffing, finally turning from the window to sit at the comms desk. “Locked in a bunker.”

“With your sister,” Echo points out but he only clenches his jaw. He doesn’t want to talk about the bunker. He misses his sister, but he’s worried. Worried that it’s been half a year since the bunker should have been opened but there hasn’t been any communication. Raven says the atmospheric gas is too thick, but he’s thick headed and is convinced something is wrong.

Echo doesn’t say anything else and he doesn’t either. He doesn’t want to talk. 

* * *

 

It’s a few months later that Bellamy finds himself looking through the Ark’s old archives. When they got up here, Raven and Monty were able to pull everything up because they’re just that good. He hasn’t spent much time looking through them, not because he didn’t have time or anything no, they have all the time in the world. He doesn’t look because he’s scared of what he’s going to find.

But it’s been a long day of bickering about the ship they saw launch towards the earth and he needs some peace and quiet for a little. He’s hesitant to figure out who’s on the ship and what they want. He has to protect his people, and staying on the Ark for the moment is the only way to do that. Until they know who they are, they stay here.

Bellamy sits in the chair that Raven normally sits in and scrolls through, finding something to interest him. He skips completely over the file that holds the faces of the delinquents. He made the mistake of looking through that once, and as soon as he saw his sister’s and Clarke’s face he threw the tablet across the room.

Besides, he’s not eager to look in the file and see all of the faces of the kids they couldn’t save. Those eighteen from the first few weeks, and then all of the ones after. Charlotte. Jasper. Clarke. He doesn’t even know how many are still alive. He’s got three of them with him, and if those are the only ones he keeps alive then so be it.

So Bellamy reads a bit about the Ark’s history, before the first apocalypse. He thinks it’s actually really interesting, reading about everything that went wrong so quickly. And then he gets bored of that and finds the files about the first year on the Ark. His relatives date all the way back to the first voyagers. He wonders if they ever thought any of their descendants would get back to the ground.

And then, because Bellamy hates himself _obviously_ , he digs into the file about his family. His mother’s parents, how they died of the illness that spread rapidly through the Ark before he was born. His mother and her subsequent floating. Himself. He studies the picture of himself, his nose wrinkling at his gelled back hair. He cannot believe his mother let him wear his hair like that.

Then he gets to Octavia and his heart is in his throat again. The only picture they have on record of her is the one taken right before she got put in lock-up. Octavia’s sixteen-year-old self stares back at him, the hardened look in her eyes that he remembers not there yet. Before everything happened, even before Lincoln.

Something catches his eye and he squints down at it. _Soulmark: Not present_.

His brows pull together. Did they keep track of that? They kept track of everything on the Ark, but he didn’t think it was that serious.

So he goes back to his file and is shocked when it says _Soulmark: Present. Image below._ He clicks on the picture and sees a picture of the mark on his shoulder blade. They must take it on your sixteenth birthday well check, after the marks appear.

Curiosity gets the best of him. He checks his friends. Raven doesn’t have one. Neither does Murphy. Harper and Monty though, they both have them. And they match. Their names are listed below the picture. He can’t help but feeling a little happy for his friends. Miller doesn’t have one, but Monroe did. And then he can’t stop, looking through the delinquents file to see. He tries to remember who’s still alive, but he can only think of a few names.

And then he accidentally flips to Clarke’s file. It doesn’t hurt as bad now to see her face. Besides, he didn’t know this face. The clean, innocent face of Clarke. He knew her when she was always covered in mud or dirt or blood and had eyes that had seen some things. But her eyes are still the same color he remembers, even if the hardened look isn’t there. Bellamy swallows and he goes to slide to the next page when his eye catches on it. _Soulmark: Present. Image below._

He clicks on it. He doesn’t know why he clicks on it, but he does. The mark on the screen looks so familiar, so normal that he almost throws up. Because that’s the mark he has on his shoulder blade. He can’t tell where it is on her body, but there’s a lot of her body he hadn’t seen, and never will. Because she’s _dead_. His name is listed at the bottom of the image.

Bellamy blinks tightly. His stomach is in knots and his heart is in his throat. His vision swims and his hands grasp tightly on the tablet, trying to regain a sense of where he is. Because he’s being brought back to every fucking time she spoke to him, or every time they argued, or any time they made each other grin. And it fucking makes sense, and he wants to scream because this is so _fucking unfair_.

Because she’s dead and has been for six years. She’s his and he’s hers and she’s _dead_.

But then he remembers that as of six months ago, his mark was still there. It was still there. His hands shake as he raises one shakily to try to reach it, but it’s not enough. He closes the program frantically and throws the tablet onto the table before rushing from the room. He just needs to get to a mirror.

Bellamy barely makes it into his room before he’s ripping his shirt off and looking at his back in the mirror. He holds his breath as he tries to locate it, sweeping his eyes across the expanse of his back until—

It’s still there.

And it matches Clarke’s.

* * *

 

Understanding doesn’t come for another couple days. Because if his mark is still there, and his mark matches Clarke’s then that means she’s still alive. He doesn’t let himself believe it for two days. Because no, Clarke died in a wave of fire six years ago. It’s too difficult to think about another possibility, to even let himself consider that she’s alive still. Because how the fuck is he supposed to break that to his friends? How does he tell them that the person they grieved for years is still alive? And when they ask how he knows, how does he tell them that they have the same fucking mark somewhere on their bodies that tethers them together?

It isn’t until he crosses to the window that realization hits him with a force that nearly causes him to fall over. If his mark is still there, it means Clarke’s alive. Clarke’s alive! He blinks and steadies himself against the wall, blood pounding in his ears.

Bellamy doesn’t know what he’s feeling. Elation? Triumph? Guilt. A lot of guilt.

Raven finds him still there an hour later. “Hey,” she says cautiously, “you okay?” He doesn’t know how to tell her. If he should tell her. Raven turns to the window as she waits for his response.

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” he mutters gruffly and Raven snorts.

“You can’t get much crazier than you already are,” she responds, a hint of a smile in her voice. Then, she sees his face. “You’re serious.”

Bellamy nods, trying to find his words. He starts simple. “You know the whole soulmark thing.”

Raven nods. “Yeah. We get them when we’re sixteen, if we have them. Do you have one?” Bellamy can only tip his head up and down. He’s trying to wrap his brain around this. Clarke’s alive. She has to be. “Okay. Is it still there? Are they still alive?”

“I think,” Bellamy finally says, and then stands fully. He needs to be sure. “I need you to check something for me.”

So Raven follows him back to the room with the tablet and he quickly fumbles with it. “Bellamy, you’re scaring me.”

He pulls open her file and pulls up the picture, effectively blocking who it belongs to. “I need you to see if this matches.” Raven nods, obviously still concerned but intrigued. Bellamy tugs his shirt over his head and points to his shoulder. “Does it match?”

Raven’s quiet for a moment as she studies the two pictures. And then she lets out a breath, “it’s a perfect match,” and he can’t stop himself from laughing a bit. “I don’t know why you insisted on checking this, but—” He turns around just as she exits from the photo to see Clarke’s face. She drops the tablet. Her hands are shaking uncontrollably, and it looks like she’s just seen a ghost. “If you still—what does—Bellamy.”

He pulls his shirt back over his head. “I know.”

Raven finally looks at him and tears gleam in her eyes. “You still have it. It didn’t fade.”

“I know.”

Raven presses her fingers into her eyes quickly, letting out a shaky breath. “That means…”

“I know.”

“Clarke’s _alive_.”

The two are quiet and Bellamy doesn’t know what to think, how to feel. “We have to get down there.”

Raven looks up at him and swallows. “What do we tell them?”

“Nothing,” he says sharply, “we tell them we agree it’s time to go. If we get down there in one piece and if Clarke’s—if she’s alive, I’ll tell them.”

Raven finally nods, a determined look coming back to her. “Okay. Let’s figure out how to go home.

* * *

 

It takes another few days. They end up on the prisoner transport ship, much to Bellamy’s annoyance. He just wants to get to the ground. He wants to know for sure, he wants to be sure. Most importantly, he wants to see her. He doesn’t tell anyone, though. Raven keeps looking at him like she’s seen a ghost and he supposes he’s feeling the same way. She’s been dead for six years, and now suddenly she’s not.

It’s a lot to process.

One of them slips up in the hour before they launch. He’s getting that damn spacesuit on when Raven looks at him. “You ready?”

“As ready as I can be,” Bellamy mutters, “I’m not letting myself get my hopes up.”

She nods and adjusts a dial on the launch board. “I know. I bet you’ll pass out, if she’s alive.”

He can’t stop himself from snorting. “I bet I pass out, too,” he responds, “I just can’t believe after all this time—”

“That she’s alive,” Raven finishes, “I know.”

“Who’s alive?” They both wince at Monty’s voice. It was not the intention to tell them. Not until they got down to the ground.

Bellamy swallows, and turns to him. Harper watches with a curious look on her face, eyeing Bellamy with a question in her eyes. Both Raven and Bellamy go quiet, desperately trying to come up with something to say. But, in the end, he sighs. “Clarke. Clarke’s alive. At least we think.”

Harper gasps a bit, her hand coming to cover her mouth. But Monty shakes his head. “She can’t be. It’s been six years.”

“She is,” Raven says suddenly, “she has to be.”

“What makes you so sure?” Harper whispers, as Murphy, Emori, and Echo continue talking in the launch room.

The story spills out of him faster than he thought it would. How he was looking through the Ark databases the other day and found it. How Raven confirmed it. How his is still there which means she’s still alive. Harper’s crying by the end of the story and Monty looks like he’s going to be sick. Bellamy feels like he’s going to faint.

“Well then we have to go,” Monty says, finally looking up, “we have to go now.”

And then the other three run into the room, slamming the door shut. “We have to go. They know we’re here.”

Getting to the ground is a nightmare in itself. Two of them had to stay behind to launch the ship and make sure that that army didn’t wake up. Bellamy begrudgingly let Murphy and Raven stay. They had no other choice but to go.

Raven made him promise to tell Clarke she was sorry, just in case, but Bellamy said, “tell her yourself.”

And then they were gone, launched back to the ground, hurtling at tremendous speeds through space.

* * *

 

When they finally feel well enough to unbuckle from their seatbelts, Bellamy is sure he’s going to faint. If everything’s true and Clarke is alive he’s definitely going to pass out.

But when they open the doors and immediately have guns pointed at them, he can’t help but roll his eyes. “Warm welcome.” Monty snorts from behind him and Bellamy wishes he hadn’t.

Because then they’re being lugged up from their ship and dragged through the woods. Bellamy doesn’t even have time to marvel at the ground because he’s too busy thinking of a way to stay alive. He didn’t come back down from space only to die within minutes of landing again.

They don’t struggle as they get led through the woods. He tries to look around, find anything that looks familiar to him, but the end of the world destroyed everything that he would know. Maybe he’s happy about it. Getting to start over. If they live through this, that is.

He doesn’t realize they’ve been pulled into a clearing until they’re all dropped unceremoniously. For a split second, he considers running. But he’s not that person anymore. He has to wait and see what they want, if they have anything to offer him.

“Do you know this place?” The woman asks sharply, turning to him. He looks around. No, he doesn’t. It has huts and glimmers of life all around it and it looks like a village, but he doesn’t know it. So he shakes his head. “Don’t lie.”

“I’m not,” he says honestly, “we just came from the sky.”

“After you boarded our ship,” the woman points out, glaring at him, “you left two. The one with the bad leg, and the boy. We saw it all.”

“Sorry,” he spits sarcastically, “we were just trying to get to the ground.” Bellamy’s heart pounds at the mention of Raven and Murphy. Does that mean that they’re in trouble?

The woman glares at him before looking around the village again. “So you do not know the girl.” He freezes, his jaw clenching. His heart pounds and he tries to keep his gaze on the woman. He can’t show any recognition of any kind, anything to put them in danger. He doesn’t even know if she’s talking about Clarke.

“Girl?”

“The one with the dark hair. The little one.” Now, he’s puzzled. He wracks his brain trying to remember if there were any dark-haired little kids in the bunker, but it’s been too long for him to recall. He was only in there for a few hours and was knocked out for most of those hours. He doesn’t have a clue who she’s talking about. “The one with the gun.”

“I’m sorry,” Bellamy starts carefully, “I don’t know who you’re talking about. I don’t know any of this. We were just trying to get to the ground again.” And then he sees it. The flash of sunlight hitting a rifle. He blinks, trying to keep his gaze locked on this woman. If there’s someone over there and he looks, it could give away their position.

But a sharp intake of breath from behind him lets him know that someone else has seen it. So he risks a glance up, and finds a kid strapped in a tree with a rifle traced on the woman in front of Bellamy. She has dark hair, and she’s little. And she’s got a gun, so everything the woman said was true.

He doesn’t have a clue how they’re going to get out of this one, honestly.

* * *

 

But they get out of it. Echo asks to go to the bathroom. They take her, just one guard, which was probably a mistake on their part. She trained her entire life on Azgeda sparring techniques, she knows how to win a fight.

So next thing they know, one guard is down and she’s able to get them all away in twenty seconds flat. Bellamy can only hope that the girl in the tree above them is able to see what’s happening.

They’ve only been running for ten minutes when they hear a motor behind them, and Bellamy curses. Of course they’ve already found them. And now they’re all going to get shot because they tried to escape. He knew they should have waited, but Echo insisted on doing something. He should have stopped her.

So they duck into a cave and cover their mouths, trying to stop their heavy breathing. Despite all of the training they did on the Ark, nothing compares to actually running on the ground. Fear pounds in his system.

Bellamy hears footsteps approaching the cave and prepares to fight his way out or die trying, because he’ll be damned if he dies before he gets to see Clarke again. If she’s even alive.

Then he hears a “pst,” and his brows come together momentarily. “Hello?” They stay deathly still, no one daring to breathe. “Bellamy?”

That gets him to move and he very slowly pokes his head out, finding the girl in the tree standing a few feet from the cave. He swallows and steps out, only hearing a quiet protest from Monty. “Do I know you?”

The girl shakes her head, sizing him up. He does the same. She can’t be older than twelve, but she’s got a fight in her eyes. “No.” He deflates. “I know you, though. You’re Bellamy.”

He nods, bewildered. She must have come from the bunker. “I am. And what’s your name?”

His friends slowly start to emerge from the cave, still looking very apprehensive of the situation. Six years of only seeing the same few people and now suddenly there’s so many more, one standing right in front of them. He watches as the girl’s eyes dance from person to person, as if she’s counting. Turns out he’s right. “You’re missing two.”

Bellamy looks back and clenches his jaw. “We are.”

“I know where they are. It must be where they took Clarke.”

He doesn’t know how his legs keep him up when he hears her name.

It takes them another several minutes to get moving because Bellamy swears he’s going to faint. Monty nearly cries and Harper has to sit down for a minute. Echo and Emori watch with little interest, instead stand off to the side conversing quietly. He doesn’t give a damn what they’re talking about.

Clarke’s alive. At least, she was a few hours ago, when Madi, Clarke’s _kid_ holy _shit_ , last saw her. Clarke’s alive and hasn’t been alone. It wasn’t a fluke, the mark on his shoulder blade is still there because she’s still there. God. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to believe it until he sees her.

Madi fills them in as they sit in the back of the Rover. He can’t stop looking at everything. Everything is so distinctly Clarke, so obviously her, he doesn’t know how he didn’t realize it at the village. She did all of this for Madi.

Madi tells them that the ship landed very early in the morning, right after the sun came up. She says that Clarke disappeared a couple hours later when she went scouting. Madi followed against Clarke’s wishes and hopped through the trees until she got to the ship. She thinks that Clarke is being held there, which means Raven and Murphy are probably prisoners too. Madi had been hiding in a tree for hours until they appeared in the village, and then she followed them and their escape.

As much as Bellamy’s heart is screaming at him to go guns-a-blazin’ into the ship, he knows he can’t. It’s not who he is anymore and he can’t send his other friends to certain death. He certainly can’t throw this girl into the thick of things, if there’s war brewing like she says there is. They have to be logical about this and think through everything. His people, his responsibility.

* * *

 

In the end, they end up storming the compound. He was outnumbered, even Madi going against him. He didn’t let her come along though, as much as she protested. Harper offered to stay behind with Madi, and Madi did not look pleased. Even when he told her it was for the best to keep her safe, she still was upset. She got a look on her face that reminded him so much of Clarke he nearly fell over again.

But Harper and Madi drop them off a bit closer to the ship before turning around and going to the edge of Eden. If they’re out of the green spot, the prisoners won’t follow them. That’s what he’s telling himself, anyways. It’s their best bet.

They get inside with little resistance. A few guards attempt to stop them, but the four of them continue pushing through. He remembers the cells that they found earlier that day (was it only this morning?) and they quickly reroute to get to the cells.

Murphy’s quiet, anxious voice reaches them first as Emori scrambles for the keys she picked off of the guard she knocked out. Bellamy’s barely through the door of the cell when Raven starts screaming at him. “What the hell,” he grunts, taking in her appearance. She looks like she’s been beaten like there’s no tomorrow. Her eyes are wide and bloodshot and her hands are tied behind her back. She still has her brace, thank god, but other than that she’s looking worse for wear.

Bellamy barely sees Monty and Emori hurry to Murphy as he tries to calm Raven down. “Raven, what the hell happened?”

She takes a heaving breath, “they caught us on the ship, we’ve been stuck here ever since. They’ve tortured us for information with these _stupid fucking collars_ ,” she snarls, and only then does he notice the shock collar, “and then we landed I don’t know how long ago. This morning—”

Then the screaming starts and everyone freezes. It’s not coming from this room, but it’s definitely coming from near them. He involuntarily flinches as the woman’s screams get louder and louder, bouncing around the walls. And then he remembers a time before the end of the world when he’s heard those exact screams. “Holy fuck,” he grunts, frantically trying to get Raven’s collar off.

“It’s Clarke,” she croaks, “they brought her this morning and they’ve had her in that fucking room for a couple hours. Bellamy, Clarke’s alive.” He nods, unable to speak. “We have to get her out. They’ll kill her for information, they only gave us a break when she came in—”

“I’ve got Raven,” Echo says quickly, jostling him out of the way, “get her and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Bellamy doesn’t have to be told twice before he’s moving quietly down the hallway. Monty follows him and he’s thankful. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to move after this. The screaming intensifies and Bellamy flinches again as the scream ends in a sob.

They’re outside of the room in seconds and he waits until the screaming starts again to nudge the handle, to see if it’s unlocked. It’s his lucky day.

Bellamy busts the door open and puts a bullet through the man’s eyes without even thinking about it. It only occurs to him later that that’s the first time he’s killed someone in six years. Only fitting that it’s to keep Clarke safe. For now, he’s too focused on the slumped figure in the corner, the blonde hair against the floor. Her hands are tied and her chest rises and falls rapidly.

The other guard goes down at Monty’s hands and his eyes are clenched shut, but Bellamy doesn’t see anything else in the room except the figure on the floor.

He doesn’t hesitate to hurry towards her, hoping and praying that it’s her and that she’s still alive. But who else does he know who has this exact shade of blonde hair, this much determination to stay alive?

Bellamy drops to the floor next to her and just stares. His hands shake as he reaches for her, and she flinches when his hands touch hers.

“I don’t know anything,” she chokes, sucking in a sharp breath, “I _swear_ I don’t.” That’s her voice alright. She’s alive.

He swallows. Now or never. “Clarke,” Bellamy says quietly, and she freezes. He tries again. “Clarke, it’s me. Bellamy. It’s okay.”

Her head finally shifts a bit and he finally sees her face and holy shit he’s definitely going to faint because that’s proof that she’s alive. Clarke doesn’t move, but her eyes take him in sharply, as if she’s expecting him to leave. “Bellamy?”

He nods frantically, reaching down and gently untying her hands. “It’s me, I’m here. We’re okay.” Bellamy’s barely gotten her hands out of the ties when she lunges at him with a strength he didn’t know she had. Her arms tighten around his back and his automatically go around her, pulling her to him. Clarke lets out a choked sob and Bellamy adjusts his grip, tangling a hand in her hair. “You’re okay,” he murmurs, squeezing his eyes shut. “Fuck, I-I thought—” He can’t even get the words out.

She’s alive. Clarke’s _alive_. Hot tears burn in his eyes and he lets out a shaky laugh. Hundreds of emotions are running through him and he doesn’t know which one he wants to settle on. Elation, for sure. He’s terrified, too. Because what if this is all a dream? It wouldn’t be the first time he dreamt about finding her again. But then she pulls back and he gets a look at her face and he knows his can’t be a dream. His dreams could never quite grasp the blue of her eyes or the pink of her cheeks.

Tears run down her face and he hastily wipes them away. Her hands settle on his face and he lets out a short breath, his eyes closing at her touch. And then she laughs a bit, and his eyes pop open as she wraps her arms around him again. “Jesus, Clarke—” He still can’t get anything out. It’s like his throat is suddenly full of glue

He gives them ten more seconds, before he pulls back, finally standing and helping her up. Monty, who was doing so good pretending he wasn’t paying attention, finally rushes forward to hug Clarke. Bellamy blinks a few times, swatting at his eyes and turning to the doorway where Echo and Emori stand with Murphy and Raven. None of them say anything, but he doesn’t think there’s anything to say. It’s as plain as day.

Raven finally clears her throat. “We have to go. We’ve spent too much time here anyways,” Bellamy nods, trying to remember their exit plan. “We have to get out of range to get these fucking things off of us.”

There’s a quiet voice from behind him and they all turn. “Where’s Madi?” Clarke’s voice reaches panic levels and he quickly shakes his head.

“She’s fine. With Harper. They’re at the edge of Eden now, they’re fine.” Her brows come together quickly and _fuck_ , he’s even missed that look she gets when she’s thinking. And then she nods.

“Well then we have to go,” she says, trying to move forward.

“We’re stuck,” Echo says and Clarke swallows. “They’ve trapped us in.”

Clarke looks down at the floor for a moment and Bellamy has to tell himself to stop staring, but it’s so difficult. His eyes feast on her, taking in her too thin body and streaks of pink in her hair. God. “There’s a way out the back. I saw it before they got me.”

And then she’s leading them and they’re all following blindly behind her.

He thinks they’ve done a really great job of escaping until two minutes away from the ship Clarke, Murphy and Raven collapse to the ground, electric shocks shooting through their bodies.

The four of them stand in shock for a moment, unable to move. “Fucking hell,” Monty groans, “can’t get a break.”

Bellamy can’t help but agree. Their shaking stops, but only for a moment before it’s starting again. Their noises of pain pierce the air and Bellamy frantically looks for something to get the collars off. His eyes zone in on one of Echo’s dagger. “Echo,” she tosses it without even looking and then gets to work on Raven’s collar. Monty does the same with Murphy’s, and Bellamy bends hesitantly down to Clarke.

She’s still shaking from the last shock and he gently rests a hand on her shoulder. “I’m gonna get it off, okay?” Her eyes clench shut but she nods. He gets the dagger under the collar gently, doing his best to avoid cutting her. She gasps a bit when it pops off, sending a shock through him. But it falls to the ground with a thud and Raven kicks the three of them back towards the ship.

“Fucking things,” she grumbles and Murphy snorts before they’re running again.

All in all, things could have gone better. But Clarke’s alive, and she’s his because the universe said so, and that’s practically all he can think about for the next month. 

* * *

 

He doesn’t tell her though for several weeks. He decides against it, after everything that’s happened in the last month. The war for Eden took a lot from Clarke. Her home, her peace, hell, it almost took _Madi_. That alone nearly broke her. He doesn’t want to make her think that she’s stuck with him because of a mark on both of their bodies.

But it’s been a few weeks now, and they’re all relatively happy again. They ended up with a corner of Eden, enough to sustain the small group of them for now. Huts are being built. Clarke’s been teaching everyone since she’s already built multiple of them before they made it back to the ground.

She catches him one day as he returns from the stream nearby. And then she immediately pulls him back to the stream. “Clarke,” Bellamy grunts as she turns him around and her hands push up his shirt.  “Clarke, what the hell—”

They stop on his shoulder blade, and he stiffens automatically. Her fingers press into it and he swears that it’s burning. “Bellamy.”

“I know,” he responds, waiting for her to drop her hands, but she doesn’t.

“How long have you known?”

He swallows and turns to face her. Her hands wring together tightly. “For a while. I thought so, _before_ ,” he tells her, “but I didn’t know for sure until a week before we came back down. The Ark kept track of it. It was in your file. I didn’t even mean to find it. And then I recognized it, and mine was still there.”

Clarke finally meets his eyes and he’s blown away at the intensity at which she stares at him. “And that’s…”

“That’s how I knew you were still alive, yeah. It took six years, but I knew you were alive.”

Clarke chews on her lip and he lets out a breath. He doesn’t know how to talk to her now, now that this huge piece about both of them is out in the open. The idea that they’ve been tethered together by some outside force blows him away, and admittedly scares him a little. This woman standing in front of him is his, and yet he doesn’t know what to say. She finally speaks up, “I wondered.” Her voice is quiet, and she’s diverted her eyes again, “when mine didn’t go away after Praimfaya. Because it was either they were in space or in the bunker, and I didn’t know which was worse. And then the years just kept going and I decided that in space was definitely worse.”

He lets out a quiet laugh, finally reaching for her hand. Hers grasps his tightly and she tugs him to a more secluded area of brush. “Space was worse,” he agrees, his thumb running over hers gently. Every touch sends a jolt through him. For six years all he wanted was to be able to see her one more time, hold her once more. And now he’s getting all of that and more and his senses are amplified.

“Mines on my hip,” she tells him, and his eyes dart downwards. No wonder he had never seen it, despite how much time they spent together before. And then he can’t help but reach towards her with his free hand, rubbing his thumb over where he imagines the mark is. Holy fucking shit.

They’re both quiet as they stand there in the brush, locked away from the rest of the group. He doesn’t know what to say besides, “what now?”

Clarke laughs a little bit, her cheeks going pink and oh, he’s so fond of that color. Only on her, though. “I dunno. What do you want to do?”

Bellamy raises a suggestive brow and her cheeks flush darker. He can’t stop himself from laughing, “I know what _I_ want, but it’s up to—”

And then her hands are on his cheeks and her lips are against his and Bellamy swears that he melts on the spot. Because Clarke Griffin is kissing him and she’s his soulmate and he’s never felt like this before. It’s like his entire body is on fire, like he’s finally getting a drink of water after a drought. His arms tighten around her back when she tries to pull away, and she squeaks a bit when he deepens the kiss.

He can’t help but smile when one of her hands slides through his hair, the other attaching around his neck. Clarke’s tongue slides across his lip and he groans, his arms tightening around her back. He doesn’t know how long they stand there, kissing slowly and lazily as if they don’t have anything in the world left to do. They only pull apart when they hear Murphy’s sharp yell from the camp a ways up the stream.

The two are quiet for a moment, breathing the same air, not quite ready to let go of the other. His eyes sweep over her face, over her still pink cheeks and swollen lips and his smile only grows. “God,” he murmurs, blinking to clear his vision, “are you real?”

Clarke huffs, but she’s still smiling, “of course I’m real.”

Bellamy kisses her cheek before tightening his grip. “You know, I’m never letting go of you again.” She laughs a bit, but he’s almost serious. “You were dead for six years, Clarke. I can’t do that again. Not now that I know and that you’re here.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she reassures him, cupping his cheeks again, “and if I ever want to go anywhere, you’re coming with me.”

And then he nods, because that’s the best plan he’s heard in years.


End file.
